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Purim Mission ZOA’S EXCITING 2017 PURIM MISSION TO ISRAEL THE MISSION TO ISRAEL OFFERS INSIGHTS ON BORDER POLICE, ARAB NEIGHBORS, KIBBUTZ GUARDS AND MORE I have been to Israel many times, but never has my life changed in the way it changed this year during the ZOA’s 10-day Purim Mission to Israel. Howard Katzoff, ZOA’s deputy executive director, called my sister in Ohio and me in Atlanta to ask us to join the mission he was planning with Jeff Daube, director of ZOA’s Israel office. Little did I know that by the end of the trip, I would be a different person. ZOA’s Purim shalach manot mission was created to bring the joy of Purim to the Magav, the Israeli border police who patrol the area between Israel and Samaria (part of the so-called West Bank). In these tense places, soldiers are not allowed to leave their posts for Purim. So, we loaded our bulletproof bus with big plastic bags filled with candy and other goodies, as well as letters to the soldiers written by children at Jewish day schools across the U.S., including Atlanta’s Epstein School and Torah Day School. Our first stop was at the most dangerous post, Tzomet Patuach in Samaria. The soldiers there have faced shootings, stabbings, car rammings and other incidents. They were thrilled to see us. The unit’s commander, an Israeli Arab Muslim, talked to us, and we sang and danced with the soldiers. When we learned that it was the birthday of a soldier in the watchtower, we formed a semicircle and sang to wish him a happy birthday. One of our mission members ran up the stairs to hand him a letter and goodies, and the soldier put his hand over his heart, read the letter 22 and wiped tears from his eyes. Goldie Kopmor (co-author with Harriet Cortell of the article in the Atlanta and Dayton newspapers), with soldiers No one seems to show these brave border guards how much we care about them, how much we appreciate their protection, and how much we pray for them, even in the U.S. The elite units at the border bases in Tulkarem and Qalqilya are made up of Christians, Jews, Druze, and Muslims, all of whom are fluent in Arabic and Hebrew. “Do you think we want to live under the oppressive PLO or Hamas or sharia law?” one soldier said. “In Israel, we are free people.” On Shabbat afternoon, an Arab Muslim newspaper reporter, Khaled Abu Toameh, talked to us about the facts on the ground. “There will never be a two-state solution,” he said. “There will never be a political peace between Israel and the PLO. Even if you give them 99 percent of all they want, they will not take it. Why? Because their goal is the complete destruction of Israel and the complete dominance of the entire Mideast” and then the world. We were told that children are being taught in Palestinian Arab schools to hate anyone different from themselves and to embrace martyrdom as the path to greatness.


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